


Such Sweet Sorrow

by Phia



Category: No. 6 - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Death, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 02:52:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14463423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phia/pseuds/Phia
Summary: “Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.“—William Shakespeare,Romeo and JulietIn which Inukashi must cope with the effects of Nezumi’s parting.





	Such Sweet Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> This was for urb-urbis-feminine as part of the 2017 No. 6 Secret Santa on Tumblr. I decided to post it here so I could have my work in one place.
> 
> For this fic, Inukashi’s pronouns are he/him, since he’s referred to himself using “俺(ore)”, a masculine personal pronoun. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

He’d missed a spot. Mud borders the ear, darkening the white fur underneath. Inukashi takes it between the pads of his index finger and thumb, smudging some of the wet dirt onto his own fingertips.

“You missed a spot,” Inukashi yells to Sion, who is already hunched over another dog. Beneath the employee’s boots, droplets of water have dotted the dust.

“Sorry,” he says, striding up to the mutt, sponge still in hand. Inukashi thinks _mutt_ because the dog is a mutt. It’s not an insult; it’s the truth. He pats over the dog’s flank, hoping the message can translate through the touch.

“It’s fine,” sighs Inukashi. He watches as Sion scrubs the space between the dog’s ears, whispers  _Sorry, Kazue_  all low and calm. “Are you … alright?”

He almost doesn’t ask — it’s an obvious way of saying  _Hey, I care about you_. And Inukashi isn’t used to that. He keeps his perch on the bench, but scoots a couple centimeters the other way, farther from Sion.

“Yeah,” Sion says, straightening up. “Why?”

“You just seem out of it today,” Inukashi murmurs. His gaze skims over the dilapidated hotel that stretches behind them. It’s been fixed up since the construction of No. 6, but it still doesn’t look much prettier on the outside.

When he glances at Sion, he blinks as Sion is the first to look away. Instead, Sion finds the sky that hovers over their courtyard, his maroon irises glimmering in a way that Inukashi understands all too well.

“It’s one of those days,” Sion murmurs, trailed by a few quick blinks.

Inukashi has never wished for Nezumi more. “He’ll come back,” he blurts.

Sion says nothing. Inukashi scratches between Kazue’s damp ears, fingers fumbling through fur.

“Nezumi connected with you, even though he could never connect with anyone else. He … maybe that was a lot for him. But he’ll never find that connection again.“ Inukashi emits a bitter laugh. “He will come back, even if he doesn’t want to.”

His insides stir as he watches Sion’s lips curl into a smile. His insides do somersaults as Sion even lets out a little laugh.

“You’re right. Thanks, Inukashi.”

Sion returns to an old hound, the one with a clean back but a dirt-speckled tail. “Ready for your bath, Chinsa?”

Chinsa’s ears twitch and he lets out a low bark.

* * *

He doesn’t have a song. The flame writhes at the end of the wick. The shadows, strewn across the walls, join before they part again. A candle is a warm pinpoint at Inukashi’s elbow. With her back to Inukashi’s stomach, Yuki whines into the dark.

Inukashi rakes his fingers through her beige fur, starting from Yuki’s hip and reaching her shoulder. He hopes that the repetitive motion can bring her a semblance of peace.

Sion named her Yuki because she was always the first dog to break from the others, bounding forward to lick a stranger’s face. As a heater, she was never hesitant in her affections, nosing under chins, draping her long tail over a customer’s stomach.

All of that happiness, that love without hesitancy, is gone. Instead, Yuki’s body shudders, her chest hitching and heaving. Whines comes from her throat like someone is ripping them from her body. Inukashi pets and pets her until he loses track of time.

There is nothing he or anyone else can do for her. Sion could make one of his serums, but it would be no contender against time and sickness.

Inukashi must sing his own songs. No one around him will sing.

Unbidden, the words trickle from his lips, collapsing into the room and filling it with slow, broken notes.

_Mori mo iyagaru, Bon kara saki-nya_

_Yuki mo chiratsuku-shi, Ko mo naku-shi_

It isn’t good. There is barely a tune and Inukashi stumbles over the words he attempts to remember. When he arrives at the line about sleeplessness, Yuki’s body stops jolting with the shock of death. When he gets to the part about a home, Yuki’s breath thins out into nothing.

Inukashi curls his body around hers, flooding with cold, a defector from the midsummer night. He gains nothing from this, and neither can she, but he continues to stay.

There’s one window in the room, and sound shoves through it. Crickets chirp in a shrill chorus, and Inukashi hears the distant shouts of teenagers arguing about nothing important. Inhabitants fill a place once void.

There are sources of heat all around him. But he still keeps close to what has left.

* * *

In the morning, Sion comes to help bury Yuki’s body. He arrives so early, sweat only beads on his forehead after he starts digging.

Dogs surround them in a semicircle. They stand like statues, wide backs bearing the sunrise’s mirage of color.

Sion undoes the blanket from around Yuki’s body and places her into the grave. Inukashi dumps dirt onto her so he doesn’t have to see her closed eyes, her closed mouth.

Birds call out into the breeze. Heat simmers on the horizon; the dogs begin panting. Sion taps the grave a few times with the blade of his shovel before he tosses it behind them.

They stand in silence. Inukashi is aware that there is no argument or song.

“Is there anything you would like to say?” Sion pipes up. It’s been a bit since a dog has passed away, so maybe he’s forgotten his decorum.

“No,” Inukashi drawls. A dog flops onto the ground —  it makes him jump. His gaze flits to where the noise has come from, but it’s just Michi having a lie-down. Her silvery fur glints in the waxing sunlight: she’s even grayer around her muzzle and paws.

“Well, I’d like to say something,” Sion says, still staring at where Yuki is curled two meters deep. Inukashi’s arms dangle at his sides. His fingers twitch, and he stuffs them into his pockets.

“Yuki.” Sion’s voice sounds like it’s been dragged through gravel. Behind him, a dog cocks its head. Inukashi has the urge to give it a pat, watch it wag its tail in a sure path.

“We’ll miss you. You were always the first to come up to me and kiss my face. I thought you had more time.” Sion rubs at one of his eyes with a fist. Inukashi opens his mouth, sure the boy is crying, but he only continues his eulogy.

“It’s going to be different without you here,” Sion mumbles. “So … enjoy your time, because we enjoyed our time with you.”

Sunlight extends its fingers across the courtyard, highlighting it with stripes of gold. Inukashi feels something crash into his chest.

He smells cherries and water and the musk of wet dog. So he curls his arms around Sion and rests his chin in his hair.

This is not about Yuki. He wishes it was. He runs one hand down Sion’s back, then does it again.

Sion mumbles  _Sorry, sorry_ , into his chest. The sound is almost in tune with Inukashi’s pulse, and he wants to dial it down, wants to cast this moment into quiet. He doesn’t want to hear Sion’s call — no one is there to answer him.

Inukashi doesn’t miss Nezumi, at least not in the way that Sion does. He doesn’t read Shakespearean plays in the hope of recalling Nezumi’s voice. He doesn’t spend hours attempting to remember the ingredients of Nezumi’s stew. He doesn’t duck his head at the three syllables of Nezumi’s name.

This doesn’t stop him from wishing the best for Sion. With No. 6 dismantled, the idea of a utopia has vanished in the explosions and fire and inked clouds of smoke. With Nezumi gone, so is Sion’s own utopia — Nezumi’s guidance, Nezumi’s affection, Nezumi’s leaden, gray gaze.

He frowns at the thought, but Inukashi did not grow up without love.

* * *

“Look,” Sionn says, shoving a sheet of paper across the kitchen table. At ten years old, the boy has grown into his own. His brown hair has grown wild like his mother’s: it tumbles past his ears, tendrils hovering just over his shoulders. West Block citizens tend to wear their hair long, and even though the wall is no longer, Inukashi doesn’t see the need to cut away every old habit.

“What’s this?” asks Inukashi, grabbing the paper and peering down at it. A big 89 is at the top, written and circled in red pen.

“It’s my math test. I know it’s an 89, but I tried, okay?” He clenches his fists, almost like he’s readying himself for a fight.

Inukashi purses his lips to hide his smile.  _Just like his father, hmm?_

“Yeah, good job. You tried.”

“Can we celebrate?”

Inukashi furrows his eyebrows, his eyes widening. “ _Eh_? Celebrate with  _what_?”

His son’s accomplishments are important, no matter how small. It’s good to encourage it all, so that he remembers the taste of success when he’s older. But they’re not rich … what is Sionn expecting from him?

“Can we go to the bakery? Please! Please, Papa?”

Sionn seems to have forgotten his prepubescent ritual of stifling his emotions. He jumps in place, his hands clasped together. Inukashi swears he can feel the table shake.

“Okay, we can go!“ Inukashi barks. “Damn, stop jumping all over the place!”

By the time they leave the hotel, it’s almost six in the afternoon. Dogs slip into their shadows, huddling in alleys and behind other stores.

Karan beams at them from behind the counter. Inukashi knows where Sion’s absence of judgement comes from. Karan pays no mind to Inukashi’s torn clothes or the crop of wild hair on Sionn’s head.

Sionn smudges the glass of the display case with oiled fingerprints. He and Karan babble at each other over the cakes and cookies. Inukashi only watches. His role is of many other parents: pull out the wallet and pay when necessary.

When he slips Karan a few bills (she’s learned to stop rejecting payment), he asks, “Where’s Sion?”

Sionn frowns, disappointed that he’d been too caught up in the thought of cherry cake to ask himself.

“Working late, I guess,” Karan says to the ground.

If he wanted to miss the way her mouth drooped at the corners, Inukashi would have to be blind.

That night, after tucking Sionn in, he retreats to the closet in the front hall. Chinsa has taken to following him these days, and his nails click against the hardwood floor.

He opens the closet door, grabbing a scarf that dangles from a peg. Inukashi plucks it from the wall and stalks over to the kitchen, where a pad of paper and a pen sit on one of the counters.

He scrawls a message, folds the paper, and whistles lowly. Chinsa bounds over to him and sits on his haunches. Inukashi ties the scarf around his neck, then tucks the folded paper between the scarf and Chinsa’s throat.

He offers one end of the scarf for Chinsa to sniff. The dog lowers his red-brown muzzle to the fabric. His nostrils twitch and Inukashi knows what he’s smelling. The scent of aged paper, of dried ink, the waxy aroma of lipstick.

Chinsa follows him when he walks to the front door and throws it open. After listening to his command, the dog trots into the night.

* * *

He wakes to Chinsa’s warm tongue laving over his cheek. It makes sense to follow him into the kitchen, but he isn’t hoping for anything good.

Inukashi steps into the room and stares.

“I was gonna wake you up with a knife to your throat, but I thought this would be nicer.”

The man is hunched over the stove, pushing eggs with a spatula. He’s looking at Inukashi over his shoulder, grinning.

“Idiot,” Inukashi growls. The idiot in question hasn’t seemed to change at all: with the exceptions of longer hair and a grayer face, he looks like he did ten years ago.

“Yeah, but you missed me, didn’t you?”

And he has the same atrocious attitude, too, the same annoying smirk.

Steam rises from the pan. Inukashi feels the same thing happen to his temperature. At his leg, Chinua nuzzles into him. He pats over the dog’s head, scratches underneath his chin.

“ _I_  didn’t.  _I_  didn’t miss you,” Inukashi repeats, as if he could get through that thick skull.

But it seems to work: Nezumi falters over the pan, spatula hovering over the eggs. Inukashi doesn’t waste time. He whistles for Kazue and she bounds over to him. A few months have passed, and it’s autumn: the sun takes longer to rise. Kazue’s back, white as snow in the day, is gray in the midmorning sunlight.

Together, Inukashi and Kazue walk over to the door. Inukashi opens it, and Kazue moves to the front step.

“Go find Sion,” Inukashi says, patting between her ears. Kazue barks once, and turns to go, tail wagging as she scurries from the hotel.

Inukashi’s shoulders sag. He is so tired, but at the thought of being able to rest, he can’t help but smile.

It’s quick, and no one sees him do it, but it’s still there.

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr is [fiveyen](http://fiveyen.tumblr.com) if you want to follow it!
> 
> Feel free to leave kudos or comments if you liked the fic. Constructive criticism / feedback is always welcome.


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